That market is exclusively vintage vehicles. The new tractor market is dominated by large companies using DRM. The scale of these vehicles is probably greater than you think.

Combine prices in particular are just staggeringly high. It's little wonder to me how so many farmers have trouble making ends meet.

Why can’t you just use foreign made combines like from India or China?

I'm sure it's possible, but any time you ask a question that includes "just", you should double check that it really is as easy as you think.

I thought that was why they asked why - they weren't sure what the reason not to was.

Sure, and that's a valid question that is probably an amazing line of inquiry. Is it cost, quality, patriotism, or some other factor? Maybe an Indian tractor is for a totally different farming style or terrain? Even me just naively unpacking the question brings up several factors that could be real problems. If your question includes the word "just", you should automatically be suspicious of it.

Yeah I'm not sure I understand the problem; the US is a free market, there are a lot of investors and a lot of engineers out there, why aren't there competitors putting John Deere out of business with products that the farmers do want?

Or are JD tractors so far ahead of any competition that their customers just suck it up? There has to be some anti-competitive lock-in for that to be a thing.

My guess it patents are that system. Not tractors, but I did listen to a podcast about how one of the main toothbrush manufacturers used patents to crush a group of dentist trying to make a better toothbrush for cheap. The patent holders waited until the last minute so that the dentist already had sunk their money into product about to hit the market to get the courts to stop it.

We are now at the point patents hamper innovation.

Building tractors efficiently at scale is not an easy task and requires lots of investment and experience. John Deere has decades of experience in production, building supplier networks and dealer networks and making tractors reliable. This is very hard to build up quickly and very expensive.

Big hardware is much more difficult than for example software or small consumer devices.

That’s why we barely see any new car manufacturers either. Tesla may make it but it has taken them a very long time and very hard work.

Decades? John Deere has been in business for 183 years. That said, I think most of their products today are overpriced and under-reliable, and they richly deserve to be disrupted.

Firstly because JD is the biggest manufacturer, and is also american. Secondly because the JD dealer network in the US. Waiting 2 weeks to get a part shipped from Europe/Japan while you are in the middle of the harvest season is a real show stopper.

It will take a huge effort to gain market share for a newcomer, and JD can always update their SW to remove DRM if they loose too much to a competitor.